


From Crayons to Perfume

by executrix



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25886674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: Roj Blake and Kerry Avon take different approaches to a school election
Relationships: Kerr Avon/OCF, Kerr Avon/OCM
Comments: 10
Kudos: 7





	From Crayons to Perfume

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gauda Prime Social Club](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Gauda+Prime+Social+Club).



_"They that pow'r to hurt and will do none,  
That do not do the thing they most do show  
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,  
Unmoved, cold and to temptation slow...  
They are the lords and owners of their faces,  
Others but stewards of their excellence."_ Sonnet 94

 _"Gimme the ball--gimme the ball--gimme the ball! Yeah!  
I was so enthusiastic, I was in on everything.  
The yearbook was full of my pictures...."_ A Chorus Line

_"A friend, a friend who taught me right from wrong,  
And weak from strong,  
That's a lot to learn.  
What, what can I give him in return?" _To Sir, With Love__

__1.  
Francois Parranzo, the Advanced Maths master of Englandome Northwest Federation Preparatory Academy, shivered as he paced his warm bedroom. The chill survived the dressing gown--and the whiskey--as he listened to the frightful clink of silver spoon on bone china._ _

__"You might have made it stronger," Kerry said, lounging against the headboard as if he owned the place. "And the cup of tea as well. I'm not made of china, you know." He put the half-finished cup on the nightstand and wound himself into the duvet._ _

__Is he missing his native climate? Parranzo surmised wildly. At times he really thought that the creature in his bed was not the flagrantly gorgeous boy he appeared to be, but a literal fiend--a monogrammed damnation that he couldn't send back now that it had his name on it._ _

__Previously, he had always managed to separate pedagogy from pederasty well enough to practice them in different places. It's the sandwich principle--you don't get your meat where you get your bread. There were always boys to be found who longed for adult guidance (or at least attention), or who preferred men to other boys (at least for their initial forays), or who simply wanted a sexual outlet of some sort, particularly as accompanied by generous gifts. But he had never met one before who really, really liked maths, and that was the final step in his downfall._ _

__"Will I see you next Wednesday?" he asked, condemning himself for the wobble in his voice._ _

__"Some say my grace is youth and gentle sport," Kerry said. "It depends on whether it's raining. I thought I might actually go for a run, if it's fine." Some idiot had allowed the obvious loophole of unsupervised alleged cross-country running as a substitute for organized games. "I'm fairly fast, but I haven't the stamina I would like. Now get back here. It's my turn. And then for pudding. I hope you made them really hard this time."_ _

__He shivered again. Boys, in his previous experience, did not have turns. Parranzo really couldn't work out if it made it better or worse that his youthful lover not only insisted on getting a few stiff partial differential equations at every encounter, but equally insisted on leaving them for last._ _

__2.  
"Fallen off the roof anytime recently?" Kerry asked Tamzin McCue. It was not an opportune time to think about this, but once the thought insinuated itself, it was inescapable._ _

__"Why are you talking now? That's not what we came here for."_ _

__"Answer the question."_ _

__"I was a week late, I can tell you now that it scared the devil out of me, but then it came and I'm right as rain."_ _

__"Right, then, Tam, I'm off," Kerry said, adjusting his clothing as he spoke. "It's too dangerous."_ _

__"You acted like you liked it well enough."_ _

__"I did. I do. But I'm not putting anybody into the club and that's final," Kerry said, stalking out of the bicycle shed._ _

__3.  
Three weeks later, Tamzin glanced up at the Tri-D screen. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see some of the back of Kerry's head. Most of his head was submerged down the front of Charysse Bogdanov's blouse. One of Charysse's hands was tangled in Kerry's hair. The position of the other was not immediately visible but could be surmised._ _

__Tamzin stopped trying to push away Sellon Evoiry's hand. "Oh, go on then, if it makes you happy," she said crossly._ _

__Their paths intersected after the viscast ended. "He was a morsel cold on Caesar's trencher when you found him," Tamzin snipped._ _

__Charysse grinned. "You go, girl," she said, tightening the arm around Kerry's shoulders as he slipped his arm around her waist._ _

__That's torn it, Tamzin thought. I wouldn't touch it again with a ten-foot pole. Now that he's gotten Delta all over it._ _

__4.  
"Don't you look handsome!" Jean Avon said, making sure that the close-fitting midnight-blue tunic hung unwrinkled._ _

__"No, I don't," Kerry said. "And I'll look a fool, with the Alphas in proper evening dress." No one can sulk like a sixteen-and-a-half year-old boy, and Avon could always sulk for Englandome at any age bracket, so this was a prime performance._ _

__"I did ask, if you could get a Sumptuary Law exemption," Jean said._ _

__"I know you did, Mum, and ta, but they turned it down, and out of sheer meanness at that." He was glad that he had to pick up Charysse, and not the other way around, or awkward questions would have been raised. As it was, he hated all the approved Delta flowers (not half as much as Charysse hated them, though) and he had to finesse the absence of a corsage by telling Jean that Charysse was allergic to flowers._ _

__Kerry took the tram to Plantagenet Close. "My God, Charysse, that's a horrible dress," he said sympathetically. "You're as close to looking pretty in it as anyone could be though." The drab-colored cheap synthetic satin puddled on the floor around her none-too-long legs and stood out, shelf-like, emphasizing her sturdy hips._ _

__5.  
"If you look carefully, sir, you can see that it doesn't actually say anywhere that the candidates have to come from the Upper Sixth," Roj Blake told Welvon Gorrinter, the Deputy Headmaster. "It's true that they always have in the past, but they needn't."_ _

__"Take your hands out of your pockets, Blake," the Deputy Head said automatically, scanning the screen in front of him._ _

__"I'm a prefect, sir," Blake said._ _

__"You can't be, you're in the Lower Fifth."_ _

__"Nonetheless, sir. If you look at my record from the Junior School, you can see for yourself that I've always done a lot for my school, in games, of course, but also doing all sorts of administration to keep things going. Like arranging for the class trips, and doing the Solstice decorations, and serving punch at the school dances, and reading to the blind war pensioners...well, lots more. That's all I want--a chance to keep doing that."_ _

__"There are ways we do things, Blake. Traditions. And I've already told Torquil Servalan that he's to be the Student Body President."_ _

__"Well, sir, with all due respect, that was rather counting your chickens before they were hatched, wasn't it? It says in the school rules that the President is elected by the entire roll of students. And I'm sure you'll do the fair thing. The reason this is such a top-flight school is that you give everyone a chance, sir. We even have Deltas here."_ _

__This was true, to the extent of one or two in each year's intake. No matter how often you told the Deputy Head that it saved trouble in the long run, by co-opting the brightest of the lower castes and using them as a stick to beat the discontented, he firmly believed that it was more trouble than it was worth._ _

__Blake's current best mate and faithful acolyte, Tez Rysaniek, waited for him outside the Deputy Head's office._ _

__"How'd it go, Blake?"_ _

__"Could have been better. C'mon, let's get a snack and I'll tell you."_ _

__Tracey Hooper, one of the dinner ladies, let them into the canteen and served each of them with a contraband cup of tea and slice of jam roly-poly. She had a soft spot for Roj, not only because of the warm smiles he lavished on all Grades alike but because he was the first child she had ever seen display any genuine enthusiasm for school dinners. She didn't know if it was just that he had no taste, or that things were even worse for him at home, poor mite._ _

__"Council of War, Missus Hooper," he said. "I'm running for Student Body President. Thrown my hat in the ring, they used to call it."_ _

__"Sometimes I think you've gone barmy, Blake," Tez said indistinctly around jam and suet pudding. "I mean, Servalan's in the Upper Sixth and you're in the Lower Fifth, for a start, you're only fifteen and he's nearly eighteen, and even if everybody didn't think the sun shone out of his arse, which they do, then they'd pretend they did to get on the right side of his family."_ _

__"You've got to look on the bright side, Tez. There may be lots of musty old customs that aren't for the best, but we can be the new broom that sweeps them clean. After all, we're Alphas, and that makes us the best people on the best planet in the best empire in history, so if we can't do it nobody can."_ _

__"I guess what I'm saying is that nobody can. Anyway, Servalan's an Alpha too. He's such an Alpha that he makes us look like a couple of Delta bog-scrubbers."_ _

__"Oh, cheer up, you old fuss-pot! All you need is a positive attitude."_ _

__"I'm positive that Servalan is going to win, that should do you."_ _

__Tez looked around to see if Mrs. Hooper was in earshot. From what he had garnered from his father, Colonel Jonas Rysaniek of the Security Service, it was unlikely that a deep-cover agent would be placed as a school dinner lady, but it wasn't impossible either._ _

__"Just stick with me," Roj told him. "It'll all come right in the end."_ _

__"Whatever you say," Tez said. "I'll go find my brother and head on home."_ _

__"Thanks for reminding me," Blake said. "I promised Jerry I'd help him with his General Science prep."_ _

__To Tez, that was just more evidence that Blake was the nicest fellow in the world. He treated his kid brother, Gervais, infinitely better than Tez' big brother ever treated him. In Tez' observation and experience, the status of older brother was a bullying license, batteries emphatically included. You'd have to be a positive saint, or else daffy, to turn down a free shot at someone who was in no position to retaliate._ _

__6.  
Rysaniek Major--Frid--hovered miserably around the newspaper office, one of Kerry's homes away from home. Kerry was the proofreader. No one else was as meticulous (he was particularly unsparing of the sports columns submitted by Blake, R.). He served simultaneously as theater critic, because that was the only way he could afford to go to the theater, much less take Charysse. He was also the textcube review editor, because he could re-sell the review copies. The job of music critic could also have been his, had he not been so indifferent to music as to be quite unable to distinguish the fourth act of Gotterdammerung from a twelve-bar blues._ _

__Rysaniek prayed desperately that no one he knew would see him in that low-status precinct. He'd never live it down. But then, if anyone he knew learned what he was trying to do, he'd never live that down either._ _

__Half a lifetime ago, when they were eight, Frid had appointed himself chief tormentor of the smart, fat, know-it-all kid with the annoying treble whine. This was no sinecure. There was plenty of competition for the title._ _

__In the interim, several things had changed, chiefly of a hormonal nature. Seemingly overnight, like one of those Christmas cakes with only enough batter to hold apart the pecans and chopped citron, Kerry Avon had blossomed into a glorious assemblage of shoulders, thighs, mouth, and chest voice. Frid dearly loved music, and would have delighted in playing the trombone publicly instead of secretly if being a band fag hadn't been esteemed even lower than being on the newspaper._ _

__Where once the highlight of Frid's day had been giving Kerry Avon a good seeing-to, now the highlight of his waking hours (or perhaps there should be another letter in there) was the chalk-and-cheese vision of Kerry, once again flat on his back, once again getting seen to, amid a blur of fists in rapid motion. Context changes everything, though._ _

__Now he was so desperately love with Kerry that he was either going to have to tell him, hang himself, or start writing poetry, and he was undecided as to which was the worst alternative._ _

__"I...well...you see, you must know how I feel...."_ _

__Kerry did, but he was going to play this one for all it was worth. He never forgot a slight (he never understood how Barbara Allen had gotten such a bad reputation). Anyway, it would be hard to rationalize dozens of beatings over a period of years as a mere slight. Frid and his horde had caused him not-inconsiderable physical pain, which he might have been able to forgive if he had carried it off with a higher hand. But they had also frightened him, and forced him to reveal that he had been scared and hurt, for which, to his mind, they could all rot in hell._ _

__Kerry walked over to Frid, very close indeed, and rested his hand gently on Frid's shoulder. "Tell me," he said. "Tell me what you feel."_ _

__"I'm in love with you," is what burst irrepressibly out of Frid, who was half sobbing and half laughing at the absurdity of feeling anything of the sort about anyone of Kerry's despicably low status._ _

__Kerry closed his eyes to memorize the pleasure. Many a time and oft in the Rialto you have rated me, he thought. And all for use of that which is mine own._ _

__"You sang then?" Kerry said softly. "Now dance." And he walked away._ _

__7.  
"Frid said that? Disgusting, " Charysse said._ _

__"He's not unattractive, in a large loutish sort of way," Kerry told her. "But I wasn't prepared to forgive and forget."_ _

__"I can't even imagine doing it with girls."_ _

__"Oh, you can imagine it, Ryssa. It just doesn't appeal to you enough to carry on the fantasy very far."_ _

__"But if you can do it with girls why do you bother with blokes?"_ _

__"Well, you know where you are with a bloke. It's all so subjective with a girl. If you want to know if you accomplished anything, you just have to take her word for it."_ _

__However, he was glad that he didn't have to take Charysse's word about her impregnability. There was a small scar on her forearm, and he could feel the three-month contraceptive capsule underneath. She had said often enough that there were plenty who wanted to see her barefoot and pregnant every year and toothless by thirty. She had no intention at all of letting that happen._ _

__Kerry thought that was an admirable moral stance. Furthermore, her responsible attitude on this point meant that he no longer had to shoplift Trojans from Boots, rendering his conscience all the clearer._ _

__8.  
Charysse gave a last delighted shiver and subsided down over Kerry. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. "Hoy, luv, you'd best get on with it," she said. "The kids'll be back in just a little while."_ _

__Kerry groaned, in this instance a sound of frustration rather than erotic pleasure, and stopped distracting himself from what he was doing. "I-can't-wait-till-I-have-my-own-flat--oh, God, Charysse."_ _

__After hurried ablutions at the washstand, they put their school uniforms back on. Charysse made up the bed while Kerry headed for the kitchen. To the Alpha kids, school uniforms were a bane: indifferently-cut blazers over too-wide trousers and too-long skirts. But the lower-grade kids adored their temporary freedom from Grade-based clothing restrictions.(This also prevented Jean Avon from having any suspicions about the smart, polite girl in the neatly pressed school uniform, or from noticing that she was almost a year and a half older than Kerry--which was yet another of the endless things he was embarrassed about.)_ _

__Charysse, her sisters, and her mother shared the bedroom of the council flat. The boys slept in the lounge. Mrs. Bogdanov, who worked the four-to-twelve shift at the curtain factory, was out of the house at the relevant time. Charysse's four siblings agreed to naff off three times a week, for half an hour at a time, in return for full and adequate consideration._ _

__The deal was that, when they got back to the flat, their tea had to be ready. Ready, but not on the table. Gregory once was impressed by a viscast tangentially involving a posh restaurant and a waiter in black tie. Kerry had to agree to sling a tea towel over one arm and bring the neatly piled plates to the table for Sir and Madam._ _

__"This is ace, Kerry," Juliet said, tucking into a flood of cheese sauce blanketing sardine pate on garlic toast. (Kerry carried a head of garlic in a glass jar in his school satchel.) Juliet fondly anticipated the apricot crumble waiting on the cooker._ _

__"Thank you, Madam," Kerry said, enunciating perfectly through clenched teeth._ _

__"How'd you learn how to cook? None of us can."_ _

__"Self-defense." He hated to be called by his first name, but there was nothing he could do about it. The little fiends sometimes threw in an extra five minutes' absence in return for being on first-name terms with an upper grade. And when you didn't have much to work with, five minutes meant a lot._ _

__9.  
"I'd like your help with something," Kerry said._ _

__So it's come at last, Parranzo thought._ _

__"It's a small favor," Kerry said. "After all, supervising elections is just the sort of fatigue that bachelor masters are always being saddled with."_ _

__"And if I don't? You'd shop me in five minutes, wouldn't you, you little tart?"_ _

__Kerry flushed in anger and humiliation, deep crimson bars spreading across his cheekbones. As a matter of fact he rather thought that he would go through some extremity to protect his lover. "If that's what you think, it's your fault for not picking on someone your own size."_ _

__In later years, throughout a variety of connections of greater or lesser irregularity, Avon would often be suspected of extortionate intent. As often as it happened, he never failed to be surprised. Although he was by no means miserly in bestowing it, he always considered access to his body a gift and an honor._ _

__According to a letter from a friend, the maths master at Willowcroft Hall had just died. Parranzo thought that applying for the job would be an excellent idea. The job paid much better, for one thing. It offered far more social cachet. Above all, Willowcroft Hall was a girls' school. Nothing but girls from the First Form to the Upper Sixth. Oh, there were certain to be a few boys about the place--kitchen helpers, gardeners, and the like--but they'd be Deltas, and you could do what you liked with them and no one would have a word to say about it._ _

__10.  
A thousand more years couldn't create a genuine appreciation of opera among rich people, but the Champagne Bar in an opera house, with its murmur of gossip and clink of glassware, is a good place in any millennium for brief, unobserved transactions._ _

__It took half an interval for Cedric Blake to locate Julian Servalan and cut him out from the herd. "You know, if I thought that this nonsense of Roj's would create any real difficulties for your boy, I'd put a stop to it sharpish. But as it is, we know that it'll be a unanimous ballot. Just as it should be. But I'd like to use this to teach my lad a lesson about the way the world works. Let him stub his toes a bit."_ _

__11.  
"He said no, Ryssa," Kerry told his girlfriend. This time, they were studying together, in the dining room of Kerry's house. In front of each of them was an empty teacup and a slice of homemade walnut cake that had prudently been left more or less intact. _ _

__"That's torn it, then. I'll get about ten votes."_ _

__"You'll get three, Ryssa--you, me, and Servalan. He'll think it's not done to vote for himself and he hates Blake worse than he hates you."_ _

__"The Alphas will all vote for Servalan, won't they?"_ _

__"The sporty ones might vote for Blake. Let's see--out of four hundred and forty-three votes, he might get--oh, about seventy to ninety. I'd say there are ten or a dozen Gamma kids--it goes without saying that they'll vote for Servalan, you wouldn't get a look in if you were the last candidate on Earth. And most of us will cast our votes with a grateful lick of Torquil's boots--so perhaps a dozen Beta votes will go to Blake, no more."_ _

__"That's right," Charysse said. "I keep forgetting. You're more posh than some of them that were Alpha born."_ _

__"Am I? I sh'll have to tone it down," Kerry said. "It could be a dead giveaway."_ _

__Charysse put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. "'King'ell," she said. "If I hadn't put down the ten-credit election deposit, I could have used the money toward that rotten evening dress I'll be paying for until Doomsday."_ _

__"There's more than one way to skin a cat," Kerry said. "That was my mistake right there, coming up with a plan involving people. You know what you're on about, with machines." Kerry gazed at the corner where the dining room walls met the ceiling. Then he looked down and took Charysse's other hand. "Ryssa, no one will credit it if you win. They'll know the whole thing is a sell."_ _

__"It is."_ _

__"But it's their sell, they won't believe ours. There's nothing for it, Ryssa, I'm going to have to give you only--ah, seventy-nine votes, and throw the election to Blake."_ _

__"Oh charming. Fat lot of good that does me."_ _

__"At least I'm giving you about seventy-six extras. And you and I will be the only ones who know what happened."_ _

__"Aren't you going to tell Blake?"_ _

__"Him least of all. As far as I can tell he's pathologically honest. And look on the bright side. They're writing out the recommendations for Uni, and if you suck up to everyone and show what a good sport you are about losing, they'll be inspired to generosity."_ _

__12.  
Mr. Parranzo was late to class. Well, it wasn't the first time. The three boys and one girl in his Advanced Calculus class occupied themselves in various ways. With one part of his brain, Kerry wondered if he dared light a cigarette in the interim. _ _

__With another part, he wondered what he was going to give them for tea today. There never seemed to be much of anything in the larder, particularly toward the end of the month. Kerry saw this as both an annoyance and a spur to the creativity of the chef. He thought he remembered seeing some oatmeal, he could do a tomato-and-onion flan on an oatmeal shortcrust base. But that had eggs, so he couldn't make chocolate mousse for pudding, or a jam sponge or swiss roll, or anything with custard, normally they'd eat damn near anything if you gave them plums and custard afterwards..._ _

__The Deputy Head walked through the door. He cleared his throat as the door snicked closed. "Lady and gentlemen, I have some news for you. Mr. Parranzo has accepted a position in another school, and will not be finishing out the term here. As there is no other faculty member qualified to teach advanced maths, and as you have proved your maturity and reliability" (four faces clearly reflected their own version: As there are only four of you and you're a load of nobodies) "We shall permit you to do independent study during this period, in the library."_ _

__Forgetting for the moment that he had already decided to hand Mr. Parranzo his UB-40, Kerry ached with loss and betrayal._ _

__"Oh, I shall miss him," Kerry said, his face very nearly neutral, his voice only minimally revealing. "I feel that I've become quite another person, under his tutelage."_ _

__13.  
Kerry wanted to kiss Charysse, but he didn't think he could get away with it. So he patted her shoulder. "You've got your speech notes. You needn't be nervous." She paced away from him, in the dimness of the wings behind the stage in the school auditorium._ _

__Tez shuffled through a couple of dozen file cards, drilling Roj on the facts and figures for his speech. "Don't be nervous, don't be nervous, don't be nervous," Tez chanted. "Why should I be nervous?" Roj said. "I've got the best campaign. 'Course I'm going to win."_ _

__Torquil Servalan stood as far as he could manage without sanction, from Nina Tarrant. Their engagement had just been announced, and there were paparazzi everywhere. On the evidence of their brief acquaintance, Torquil thought that Nina was probably the dullest, most snobbish, and flattest-chested girl in the entire Dome. And she was only the twenty-third-richest, which made him feel hard done by._ _

__Dr. Quagliano, who taught Civics and Military History, manifested backstage. "Ladies first, eh?" he said. Charysse blanched._ _

__"I should have thought we were committed to the principle of full equality," Servalan said silkily. "In alphabetical order, surely?"_ _

__Roj bounded out onto the stage. "Hullo, everybody. You all know me, even though I haven't been here for very long. You know me because I'm in the center of things, and that's because I love this school so much and I want it to be a better place. We're going to win the Invitational Cup tournament, and we're going to get more scholarship placements at Uni than any other school, and we're going to win the music and drama awards too. I can promise all that because you're going to vote for me and I'm going to work my fingers to the bone until we're better than any other school and everyone knows it."_ _

__There was a spatter of surprised applause._ _

__Charysse walked out as if she fully expected a trap door to open beneath her feet. "Blake says that everybody knows him. Most of you don't know me. I'm not like you, I haven't the things that you have. I'm a Delta, and everything I ever say or do reflects on any lower grade who ever pokes his head above the muck. I want you to vote for me to prove that it's possible. That's all, really."_ _

__Torquil brought Nina out with him. They got an enthusiastic round of applause, which lasted the duration of his speech, which was pretty much limited to: "You know my family. You know that we're the best. Aristocracy means rule by the best. That's why we have our privileges, because we deserve them."_ _

__14.  
A week later, the students assembled again for the election results. When the stage curtain came up, the Deputy Head stood at the podium, Torquil Servalan at his side, holding a large vellum envelope._ _

__The Deputy Head opened the envelope with a flourish. "The results of the election poll for Student Body President are...Charysse Bogdanov, 79 votes. Torquil Servalan, 138 votes. Roj Blake, 226 votes." Roj stood up, a huge grin illuminating his face, and started off toward the stage._ _

__For a sublime moment, Dr. Gorrinter stood, his countenance empurpled, his eyes bulging. But he would not have reached his current rank and eminence had he been devoid of resources. "The election is hereby abrogated, and Torquil Servalan is hereby appointed to the office of First Prefect and Head of School. Congratulations, Servalan." He shook hands with Torquil, and the photographer for the school paper immortalized the moment._ _

__Kerry was able to stop laughing after one resonant bark. "Don't you dare cry," he whispered to Charysse, and this time he did kiss her, so no one would see if she was unable to obey him._ _

__Tez tugged urgently at Roj's tunic. "Don't say a word. Wait till you feel better, then go and shake Servalan's hand."_ _

__"The devil I will!" Roj said, and resumed his charge toward the stage._ _

__Tez tackled him and sat down on him, his hand over Roj's mouth, and didn't let him up until it was time to sing the Federation Anthem before the assembly was dismissed._ _

__####################  
_"How, how can you thank someone,  
Who has taken you from crayons to perfume?  
It isn't easy, but I'll try."_ To Sir, With Love_ _


End file.
